


reborn

by secretofthewillow



Category: Titanic (1997)
Genre: F/M, Jack Dawson/Rose Dawson, Rebirth, Rose Calvert, Titanic - Freeform, Titanic 1997 - Freeform, Titanic RMS, but it’s implied they reunite, idk how to tag lol, jack is reborn, revival, rose dawson, rose is mentioned in passing, set a few days after the titanic sank
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:47:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27954107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretofthewillow/pseuds/secretofthewillow
Summary: The ocean spat him out. Jack was supposed to be dead. Yet, here he was.
Relationships: Jack Dawson/Rose DeWitt Bukater
Comments: 5
Kudos: 18





	reborn

The unforgiving depths of the Atlantic churned into itself, its current forever flowing. Waves edged with white danced and threw themselves against the length of the sullen beach, desperate for a taste of the land that they could never hold onto. The horizon was infinite, smothered and shrouded in the clinging fog of a violent storm.

The cold and greedy fingers of the ocean dragged unlucky souls into itself without worry and reason. Scattered bones of times past laid still at its bottom, suspended in time. An equal exchange. Mankind took, and therefore the ocean took mankind.

But today, the seagulls cried a song like no other, their white feathers stark against the dark and brooding sky. The current of the Atlantic tossed like it never had, and the wind bellowed to all that would hear. The reaches of the ocean begged for the land, slamming itself into rocks smoothed by age. Its wail was like no other sound on Earth.

The ocean spat him out.

On the sand laid a boy, waves furiously washing over him.

* * *

Jack awoke with a strangled gasp that emerged deep within him, eyes wild and heart beating dangerously fast against his rising ribcage. For a few painfully long moments, he lied still, catching his breath and allowing his lungs to fill with salt tinged air. Finally, he coughed - sharply, tears brimming his eyes, and rolled over onto his weak forearm. He could feel the harsh sand beneath his body and against his elbow, he could feel his sopping clothes stick against his ice cold skin, and he could smell the salt air and witness the raging sea.

The last thing he remembered was Rose. Her face was blurry as his vision succumbed with black tugging at his eyes. He had been cold, Rose had been crying, desperately holding onto his closed hands, and he had firmly told her not to say goodbye. Her lips had trembled and all had gone silent.

He was supposed to be dead. He had tasted death and let it overcome him, washing him, guiding him into the depths of the ocean. Death had called his name and took him softly by the hand, enveloping him. Jack’s sacrifice had not gone unnoticed, and death was gentle as it dragged him under the black waves of ice and wreckage.

And yet, here he was.

Tears spilled from his eyes onto his cheeks as he struggled to once again _breathe._ His heaving was drowned out by the ferocious wind. Leaning his body further onto his side, he dug his fingers into the numbingly cold sand to confirm that he was alive, that death had been so kind to release him.

Jack felt a sudden booming in his chest, vibrating through his bones and surrounding his mind - the same way the water had encased his body when he drowned. It rose with his heartbeat, and tingled at his fingertips. It was almost as if he was saying it himself.

**_The Earth is angry. You must return._ **

The words of the voice of the ocean were not spoken, not in the way man spoke. It was in a language man would never know - but Jack understood. The voice reached into his ancestry, tapping back into hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, speaking to his instinct, in the ancient tongue of the land and the sea and the sky and the heavens and all that laid beneath.

_**It is not your time. You must return.** _

And so, Jack stood. He trembled and he shook, and his legs threatened to buckle under him, but his feet stood solid on the sand. His skin stung and ached at the salt water thrown at his face. His hair whipped around his cheekbones, leaving specks of sand over his cheeks.

The wind sung and screeched with the joy of new life. The sky looming above was heavy and the colour of lead, its clouds roaring against one another, crying upon the Earth, mercilessly beating down on Jack’s face.

He was alive.

He had returned.

 _He had never felt so alive._ This was life unlike he had ever known.

Jack placed one foot in front of the other, the wind singing furiously in his ears, pushing him forward with each shaky step. His heart thrummed louder and louder with a realization, making his breath catch in his throat.

He would find Rose.

Never again would Jack hear the voice of the ocean speak to him, but he knew it would always be listening; waiting for his call, waiting for his voice, waiting to claim him once more when his time would come.

The ocean freed him, it had freed Rose, and at last, it had brought him back.

**Author's Note:**

> hi! this is my first work published to ao3. titanic is one of my favourite films of all time, so i wanted to write something in dedication of it. thank you for reading.


End file.
